Negotiating normative institutional pressures and maintaining legitimacy in a complex
work environment:
A multiple case study of three academic cataloging units
Gretchen L. Hoffman
School of Library and Information Studies, Texas Woman's University
ABSTRACT
The user-centered approach to understanding information use and users has shaped
research in library and information science (LIS). User-centered research has contributed to work
in libraries, including work in reference, youth services, adult services, and management. User-
centered research that contributes to cataloging work, on the other hand, has been minimal.
Cataloging is specialized work that focuses on providing access to library materials using
standards developed by the library profession. Catalogers follow standards in order to be
efficient in their jobs. In a user-centered environment, however, catalogers also are told to focus
on users and adapt standards to meet users’ needs.
This paper presents the results of multiple case study research performed in 2006-2007 to
understand how catalogers negotiate the pressure to adhere to cataloging standards and the
pressure to meet users’ needs. New institutional theory—specifically, DiMaggio and Powell's
(1983) concept of normative institutional pressure—served as a framework for the study.
The results suggest that standards and users are bound together. Catalogers believe
strongly in the importance of standards and users, but standards guide the behavior of cataloging
units. To follow standards is to meet users’ needs. The results also suggest cataloging
administrators shape and redefine the normative institutional pressures of standards and users to
respond to the organizational pressures of work efficiency and professional legitimacy. In
addition, the results suggest that the pressures of efficiency and legitimacy have led cataloging
units to redefine their work. As cataloging units gain efficiency, they lose work and legitimacy.
They need to claim new work to maintain legitimacy and remain relevant to their libraries and
universities. Consequently, they are changing what it means to do cataloging.
DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and
collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48, 147-
160.
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